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Parfumerie Generale Praline de Santal & Les Parfums de Rosine Rose Praline ~ fragrance reviews

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Everyone needs a little candy now and again, no? Not necessarily praline, mind you, and not necessarily praline in high summer, but it’s still cool enough here to talk about two possibilities for the gourmand section of your perfume collection: Parfumerie Generale’s Praliné de Santal and Les Parfums de Rosine’s Rose Praline.

Parfumerie Generale Praliné de Santal

Parfumerie Generale, to my mind, is a niche house you really should know if you’re at all into oddball little gourmands — candy for grownups, if you will. Praliné de Santal is one of their more recent launches, and it’s a limited edition, so if you want some, think sooner rather than later.

I loved it right away…

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An attractive rose fragrance through the skin

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The rose-scented boiled sweet, called Deo, contains BENEO’s ISOMALT and will not only taste good, but after consuming, will transmit an attractive rose fragrance through the skin.

— Read more at Alpi and BENEO present first sugar-free ‘perfume’ candy in Europe. Hat tip to Tiara!

The candy is reportedly available in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Hungary. If you remember, there were similar products (candy and gum) on the market in Japan.

Gucci L’Arte di Gucci ~ fragrance review

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L'Arte di Gucci advertL'Arte di Gucci advert

A long time ago I read an interview with Donatella Versace in which she said wearing red lipstick with a red dress was bourgeois. She suggested pink lipstick instead. I get that. Red lipstick with a red dress is predictable, a hackneyed suggestion of seduction or power. Pink with red is a surprise that makes you look twice.

Sometimes, though, you don’t want to mess around with subtlety. You don’t want to play cute or artsy — you want to get to the point. A red dress with red lipstick will do just that. So will the perfume world’s version of red on red: a rose chypre. Gucci L’Arte di Gucci makes the point better than most.

L’Arte di Gucci launched in 1991. Its bottle, a glam concoction of asymmetry and gold, is a good representation of its contents. L’Arte di Gucci goes on sharp with a fanfare of green and rose, dirtied by cardamom. (Honestly, a fanfare. Don’t squirt the bottle while your honey’s still asleep, or you might wake him with the olfactory racket.) The fragrance shimmers with hints of orange, aldehydes, and cassis as it settles…

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Annick Goutal Rose Absolue, Ce Soir ou Jamais, Quel Amour!, and Rose Splendide ~ fragrance review

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Annick Goutal Quel AmourAnnick Goutal Rose Absolue

According to the lore of her eponymous fragrance house, Annick Goutal was deeply fond of roses; as one of the company websites states, “Every moment of her life was filled with them as she believed in their sensorial properties and their beneficial powers on the skin. She added drops of rose essence to her bathwater, drank it in secret teas…” Over the years, Goutal has released spicy fragrances, woody fragrances, green fragrances, and all sorts of florals, but it also continues to offer several variations on rose. Here are my thoughts on four of them…

Rose Absolue is an early Goutal fragrance, released in 1984. It was difficult to find for a while — in the United States, at least — but now it seems to be more widely available. Annick Goutal said of Rose Absolue, “Roses symbolize beauty, the eternal feminine. I wanted to dedicate a perfume to them which would also evoke this femininity.” This fragrance is all rose: it contains essences of May rose, Turkish rose, Bulgarian rose, Damascus rose, Egyptian rose, and Moroccan rose. Rose Absolue is both delicate and radiant. Like a gradually opening rose, it shifts from dewy to velvety to slightly dusky. If someone asked me to recommend just a few high-quality rose soliflores, this would be on my list…

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Duchess Marden Body Serum ~ scented body products

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Damask roseDuchess Marden body serum

I was introduced to the Duchess Marden line a few years ago, when I received a facial treatment at a spa that used natural and organic products; since then, I’ve occasionally purchased Duchess Marden Pure Rose Water and Crème Cleanser to use at home. I like these products because they’re plant-based, they don’t contain any parabens, petrochemicals, or chemical preservatives, and — not the least of my reasons — they smell like roses.

With its recently launched Body Serum, Duchess Marden has moved beyond the face and neck to address the rest of our skin. I know that serums have become very popular in the skincare market over the past few seasons; now, apparently, the term is being applied to body products as well. (A quick internet search brings up “body serums” at various price points, from La Mer to Boots.) Duchess Marden’s all-over serum is packaged in a stunning gold-on-black bottle that a beauty editor would no doubt describe as “luxe.” It’s intended for use on damp skin after a bath or shower, in place of lotion or body cream, and it could also be incorporated into a massage.

Looking at the list of ingredients, I’m not entirely sure what differentiates a body serum from a body oil…

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